The Onde Magnétique Is Like A Cassette Tape Mellotron

The OM-1 Cassette Synthesizer is an analog musical instrument, built around the concept that when a continuous tone/note is recorded to tape, its pitch will change as the tape’s playback speed is increased or decreased.

Individual notes are playable via the 8 button keys, each with a tuning knob directly above it. The knobs let you configure the speed of the cassette, so you can tune the cassette’s playback.

The volume of the notes can be articulated by using the pressure-sensitive volume control. The harder its pressed, the louder the note.

A three-position switch controls attack/release response of the audio output – Short, Medium, and Long. CV/Gate inputs allow control over the cassette’s pitch and volume from a linear (non-quantized) voltage sequencer.

It looks great. I like the idea of recording some tapes where the tone changes to different setting every 4-5 minutes. Or even modifying my fourtrack so I could place 8 voices onto each tape. Great concept, this is the stuff that now excites me not another 2 voice mono synth!!

My question is, how much use can one get from the cassette before the tape snaps, rendering your voices useless? There’s a reason why technology left cassettes and eight tracks in the dust. Having played through boxes of my favorite music over and over, tape tends to start sounding bad after a while, then it eventually breaks. Let’s not even think about the “caught in the mechanism” incidents that forced everyone to have a No. 2 pencil handy for “re-reeling” the cassettes. Love this concept, just concerned that it depends so heavily on wonky tech from yesteryear.